


Gideon of Omega: Bane of Slavers

by ElectricalSun



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Aliens, Biotics, Bullying, Canon-Typical Violence, Child Abuse, Explicit Language, F/F, Girls with Guns, Lesbians in Space, Mercenaries, Orphans, POV First Person, Psychological Trauma, Science Fiction, Slave Trade, Slavery, Space Opera, Space Stations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-04-07 14:35:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4266924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricalSun/pseuds/ElectricalSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gideon Vane, colonist on New Canton, was captured by batarian slavers at the age of twelve.  Sold to the merc group, Eclipse, on the space station Omega, few in the Terminus Systems have experienced more suffering than she.<br/>Gideon grows up among the mercenaries and learns of both the necessity of camaraderie and the crushing toll of bereavement, shaping a mild girl into a one of the most fearsome vanguards known beyond the Attican Traverse. </p><p>In the turbulent galaxy known as the Milky Way, many forces, both those of the universe and of the heart, threaten Gideon's very survival.<br/>Behind the scenes, the mercenary queen Aria T'Loak takes a particular interest in the human, one shaped by selfish desire that will only leave scars upon the society that lives under her command.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 23 March 2176 – New Canton

23 March 2176 – New Canton

            My mother crouched before me where I was seated on the floor, assault rifle strapped to her back, eyes grey and stern.  “Gideon, remember how I told you that life in the Terminus Systems wouldn’t always be easy?”

            “Yes, Mom,” I said.

            “Do you remember where the bunker is that we prepared in case of emergencies?”

            I nodded.

            “Now is the time to use it.  You are such a good girl, Gideon,” she said with a sad smile.

            My father turned away, hiding his face toward the window of our living room.  I could still see his reflection, though, tears swelling up in his eyes as they always did when he was angry.  “Damnit, I never thought that _slavers_ would attack a human colony.  I mean, I know we’re outside of Alliance and Council controlled space but—“

            “Julius!”  My mother nearly shouted.  “Now is no time to frighten our daughter.”  She turned towards me.  “Everything is going to be okay, sweetie.”           

            “Is it?”  I asked.

            My mother just looked at me, then pulled me into her arms.  “For twelve years I have tried to do right by you, Gideon, but life sometimes tears us apart.  Perhaps keeping you on this colony was a mistake – a selfish one at that – but every day I wake up and am thankful that I have you and your father in my life.”

            My father turned back toward my mother and me.  “Remember to activate the beacon after…” He paused.  “After whatever happens happens.  I don’t know if these Batarians are going to be able to pick up on the source of the signal if you activate it too soon.”

            A loud bang shook the house, more severe than the one that had preceded a few minutes before.  Not more powerful.  Closer.

            My mother kissed my forehead before hanging a pendant around my neck, the silver medallion she had worn since before I was born. 

            Trained as a soldier, she was the first to leave.

            “I love you, Gideon,” she said, embracing me once more.  I yearned for that moment to last forever, but she tore herself away and left through the front door.

            My father was an engineer, but it was only a brief moment before he received a call over his handheld radio.  He was needed immediately to repair a communications tower on the far side of the colony.

            “You need to go now, Gideon,” he said, lifting my bag and helping me strap it to my back.  “It’s about ten minutes away – and you’ll get there sooner if you run.”

            He followed me into the basement, lifting the hatch that emptied into the tunnel system below, dimly lit by emergency lights that illuminated when tragedies were to occur in this faraway place.

            “I’m going north,” my father said, “but you need to go east to reach the bunker.  Activate the beacon when everything is quiet on the surface.  Several others like it should be going off around the same time, but it’s better to activate it in case the others fail.  My sister said she will take care of you on the Citadel until your mother and I can reach you.”

            He kissed me on the forehead, just as my mother had.

            “You’ll come back for me, dad, won’t you?” I asked.

            “Of course, sweetheart.  I will see you within a few weeks at the very most.  I know you can do this; you’re as brave as your mother.”

            I wasn’t entirely reassured, but I still watched him as he disappeared down a tunnel, glancing back to see me slowly turn and walk in a different direction.

            The path was easygoing at first, mostly compacted dirt that had been reinforced by metal in strategic locations in order to ensure structural integrity.  I moved as quickly as I could with my pack.  There was more and more metal as I headed east, until I was in a metallic tube that took a sharp turn deeper into the crust of the planet.

            Then the lights went out.

            I gasped at first and my breath came hard and fast.  “Dad!  Daddy, the lights went out!”  I cried in fear, before realizing he was probably about a mile away by now.  I calmed myself and removed my pack, wasting precious minutes attempting to find my flashlight.

            Another explosion rocked the tube around me.  I felt my composure slipping from me, but my fingers managed to fumble to my only light source and press the button.  I strapped my pack back on and continued down the tube, slower so that I wouldn’t lose my footing in the dark.

            About a quarter mile further, there was a section where two tubes met at a perpendicular angle.  I heard voices coming from the tube to the right, so I switched off my light and pressed myself against the cold siding, willing my breath to soften into silence.

            “I saw something this way,” the voice said.  It wasn’t the pitch of a human.  I had never heard a Batarian in real life before (the transmissions we received from outside of the system were spotty), but I thought this voice must have been one of those that had brought terror to the Terminus Systems.  I could feel tears silently creeping down my cheeks.

            Closer, the footsteps pressed and my heart felt like it would explode in my chest.  I gripped the legs of my overalls with my fists and clenched my jaw, the only things I could do to keep me from screaming.

            But I shrieked, knowing all hope had been lost, as a strange grasp took ahold of me in the dark, turning a flashlight to illuminate my face.

            Its four eyes beamed at me as it shouted “I’ve found a girl!  Adolescent!”

            “Perfect,” said another voice, one still hidden in the dark.

            I never made it to that bunker.


	2. Late May 2176 – Omega Nebula

Late May 2176 – Omega Nebula

            I traveled with those batarian for two months as they went to further colonies on the outskirts of the galaxy, pillaging the smallest and most defenseless among them.  The occasional news transmissions I managed to eavesdrop on said that it was the largest string of raids to occur in the past decade.  The batarians just laughed at the report and flipped it over to some filthy dramatizations that only one of their vile species could enjoy.

            The ship I was in was smaller than many of the others.  The prisoners were kept in the cargo hold, with minimal security, most likely because we were entirely composed of only a few children too scared out of our minds to be defiant of our captors.

            For the first three weeks, I was the only captive aboard the ship.  It seemed as though New Canton had been the first hit by the slavers.  The surprise attack had ensured the devastation of the small outpost where my family had lived, as well as some of the other outlying outposts.

            It was quiet, almost peaceful, during those times, clouded over by an anxiety that first gnawed at my mind, but soon reducing to a low hum by the time we reached clusters that lay closer to the Attican Traverse.  In those regions we acquired more “passengers”, mostly human and asari.  My nerves grew stronger, but in retrospect this could only be due to the ignorance of childhood.

            Other were not as calm.  One of the older girls was worried sick by what the selection of species might mean.  The phrase “concubine” was thrown around by those old enough to know the word’s meaning for the remainder of our trip.

            One evening we reached a mass relay for the first time in over two weeks, jumping to a new cluster.  I could look through one of the small portholes on the side of the cargo bay as the batarians pulled the ship aside to a fuel depot.

            In the distance, I could see the great asteroid that had broken in two, its large spire stretching out into the darkness that surrounded it, at times reflecting light from the system’s sun in a metallic sheen.

            “No, it can’t be,” I whispered, rubbing my sleeve against the window to remove smudged finger prints.  “Is that…”

            “Omega!” one of the asari girls gasped behind me.  “The heart of evil.”

            The children and teenagers gathered around the portholes, the older ones holding the younger ones up for a brief look.  Ships entered and exited the massive mining complex, now turned a stronghold of malevolence.

            “What’s going to happen to us?!” someone cried to my right.

            “Maybe they will send us to the mines,” suggested the asari from before.

             A human teenager piped up from by my left shoulder.  “What about merc groups?!”

            “I can’t be in the Blood Pack!  Have you ever seen a Krogan?!” the first boy screeched.

            Someone laughed in the back.  “They’ll make you fight Thresher Maws on Tuchanka to prove yourself, I bet.”

            “Shut up, that’s not funny!”

            A different asari broke in.  “Well, anything is better than staying with these smelly batarians.  I’d be happy enough to be picked up by some grubby scrap collector.  Hell, maybe even some Cerberus lieutenant might find a use for us.”

            “Or,” the girl to my left nearly whispered “Aria T’Loak.”

            A silence fell upon the group.  One of the younger humans eventually piped up.

            “Who’s Aria T’Loak?”

            “The de facto leader of Omega,” offered the asari who had first mentioned the station by name.  “An asari of immense power who strikes fear in the hearts of even the merc groups who have made this place their home.  She took down Omega’s old leader in one on one combat to claim his place.”

            “So what?  How tough could he have been to be taken down by a single asari, unless she is a Justicar or something?” someone jeered.

            The girl paused.  “No, she is no Justicar, not in the slightest.  But the old leader, they call him Patriarch now, he was a Krogan.”

            The group seemed to take a sharp breath in unison.

            She shook her head.  “She parades him around like some kind of trophy.  I think one of his clan would find death a more fitting end.”

            We were silent for a while, then.  The ship slowly shifted toward the spire, eventually being granted clearance to dock.  The lights were significantly brighter from the docking station and species of all sorts could be seen darting back and forth from ship to ship.

            “Look, a Hanar.”  The knowledgeable asari offered her wisdom, this time only to me.  “They don’t take as well to cursing as the rest of us in the Terminus Systems tend to.”  The highly intelligent, though blob-like, creature slowly shifted its way into one of the outer sectors from the docking bay.

            “Wow, you know a lot more than I do” I said.  “I never left my homeworld.”

            “I might only look like a teenager to your species, but I’m actually decades older than you.  I’m not smarter by any means; I’ve just been around longer.  Where are you from?” she asked kindly.

            “New Canton.”

            She shook her head.  “I’ve never heard of it.”

            “It’s not far from Ferris Fields,” I offered.

            “Oh! I’ve heard about them.  I’m Tar’me M’loor, by the way.  I’m from a satellite colony off Illium.”

            “Gideon Vane.  Though I don’t know how much longer we’re going to be cooped up in here.”  I could head footsteps from the hall within the interior of the ship.

            The cargo bay door opened with a shudder.  The batarians divided us up into two lines, each child bound in electronic shackles at the wrists.  The lines were marched parallel to one another into the docking bay, and then into Omega proper.  Though the batarians were barking the occasional command at us, no one dared to bolt from the group, nor did anyone listen to what our captors had to say.  We soon discovered that Omega could speak for itself and found its own way to keep us in line.

 

           


	3. 31 May 2176 – Omega

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An auction takes place in a tiny warehouse in the heart of the Tuhi district of Omega. Jona Sederis has been forced to take over the purchasing of "resources" due to a recent slip up by Eclipse's head on Omega, Jaroth.

31 May 2176 – Omega

            We were taken to the slums, down past the salvage shops and the vorcha rotting in the foul gutters of the station.  Eventually we emptied out into what a sign identified as the “Tuhi District”, an expanse of cramped shops nearly overlapping one another in an effort to survive in limited space.  We shuffled along its passages, wrists bound in electronic shackles.

            One of the batarians leading the band of slaves approached a metal door that looked like it belonged on the outside of a vault jutting from a gap between two shops.  He punched in a series of codes into the screen on its surface and then scanned his palm before the door unlocked with a series of echoing clicks.

            We entered the vault and were coaxed down a long metal staircase by the guards who held the rear of the group.  The space was rather dark, illuminated only by the bands of red light that lined the ceiling into the abyss below. 

            Another metal door awaited us at the bottom of the staircase.  This time a screen illuminated on its surface and a turian’s face appeared and spoke to the batarian at the head of the group.

            “Which party are you with?” asked the screen in a bored tone.

            “C789,” the batarian replied.  Another series of clicks followed as this door also unlocked.

            The warehouse beyond was spacious and well lit, almost harsh.  It was mostly empty, save a few metal crates pushed against a wall on the far side.  Before the crates loomed individuals of various species, six in total.  They seemed to be grouped into pairs and each pair kept a fair distance from the other two.

            “All three of you?” one of the batarians quipped. “Surprised no one’s had a limb blasted off yet.”

            “We know better than to shit where we eat,” replied an asari in tech armor. “At least most of us do,” she shot a dirty look at a krogan across the room who didn’t seem to notice.  “Tuhi belongs to no one and we all do business here.  It’s better than dealing with the elcor in Carrd.  Now less small talk; show us what you have before we walk.”

            One of the batarians raised a datapad and cleared his throat, “Twenty children and adolescents in total.  Nine humans, eight asari, two salarians, and one volus.  All are literate and healthy as far as we can tell and all come from outposts located outside of Citadel controlled space.”  He pulled one of the younger human boys to the front of the group by the collar of his shirt.  “Human, male, seven years of age, from New Canton.  Bidding price begins at 2000 credits.”

            The small boy from my colony fearfully shook in his shackles as his fellow captives watched in horror and astonishment.  We slowly began to understand that we were being bought and sold like cattle.

            “We’ll take him for 2000,” said a turian in the back of the room.  He was dressed in blue and had a row of freshly healed gashes on the crest of his head.

            “Eclipse bids 2300,” said the asari from before.

            The slaver with the datapad looked up.  “No bid from the Blood Pack?” he asked a Krogan who had sunk as far into the corner of the room as possible.

            “Waste of money.  He’d be ripped to shreds just by our initiation,” the Krogan replied with a dark laugh.

            The boy, whose eyes had been releasing a steady stream of tears since the bidding had begun, let out a heart wrenching wail.  “I don’t want to be fed to Thresher Maws!” he screeched.

            A different batarian slaver stepped out and knocked the boy in the back of the head with an armored glove, firm enough to get him to be silent but not rough enough to damage the cargo.  The boy softly whimpered as he seemed to sink into himself, but no more loud cries came from him.

            There was an uncomfortable shuffling among the group of children, even a couple of frightened whispers, but no one dared raise their voice in protest.

            “2400 from Blue Suns,” the turian from before interjected.

            The batarian looked to the asari.

            She shook her head.  “They can have them.  Eclipse can spend their money on more useful things.”

            “Sold,” replied the batarian as another guard dragged the boy into a corner away from the main group who had yet to be auctioned.  His tears seemed to be drying but he still gently shook from shock.

            “Tough customer as always, Jona,” the turian said to the Eclipse representative with a hint of a smirk.  “Jaroth isn’t quite as fussy as you.  Is that why you took over this sale?”

            The asari didn’t look at him as she replied.  “I need smart kids who can work on mechs, not trembling cannon fodder.”

            An asari and a human boy a few years older than me were sold next.  They went for 3700 to the Blue Suns and 3500 to the Blood Pack respectively.  The asari was placed next to the first boy who had been auctioned and the other human was placed across the room, presumably where the Blood Pack would collect their newest purchases.

            Then Tar’me was brought to the front of the group and I could feel a lump form in my throat.  She was calm, nearly serene, as the numbers rose.  3400.  3500.  3550.

            “Wait, you must be several decades old at this point, not to mention that you come from a comparatively civilized area,” the woman named Jonas from Eclipse cut in.  “Do you have any tech experience?”

            “I worked on security mechs that relied on simple VI systems here and there,” Tar’me replied flatly.  She didn’t seem nearly as frightened as the previous three sold before her.

            “And none of them exploded in your face?” Jona asked.

            Tar’me’s eyebrow markings furrowed.  “Why, do they do that?”

            “Only if you’re really terrible.”  Jona paused as they locked eyes, a small smirk just barely visible on her face.  “4000 credits”.

            The turian from Blue Suns backed down and the Blood Pack representatives acted uninterested.

            “Sold,” the arbiter declared.

            Tar’me was the first in the group that would go to the merc organization Eclipse.  Though pulled by her arm, she was graceful as she took her place.

            I was next.

            I stepped forward when my name was called without being prompted.  I couldn’t bear the thought of one of the slavers touching me, and I tried to keep my face calm like Tar’me had as the batarian with the datapad read details about me.  My wrists ached from the shackles as I focused all of my energy to my feet.

            _Stay still, stay quiet.  You will be okay.  You are strong._  

            It was the least I could do to stay standing and not drop to the floor in a puddle of misery.

            “Human, female, twelve years of age, from New Canton,” he read.  “Bidding begins at 2200.”

            “2200,” the krogan from the Blood Pack offered.

            I felt a rock drop in my stomach.

            It seemed an eternity had passed before the Blue Suns representative spoke up.  “2350.”

            _Blue Suns.  Blue Suns isn’t so bad_ , I thought.  _They don’t fight Thresher Maws… right?_

            “2500,” the krogan rebutted.

            I made eye contact with Tar’me but her face didn’t betray what she might be thinking.  I found my eyes desperately tracing the room, begging for assistance from anyone who could see my desperation.  The turian from the Blue Suns looked away.

            _No.  Please, no, no-- not the krogans.  I won’t last a day._

            I could feel tears welling in my eyes.

            “Your name, girl,” I heard a familiar female voice say over the spinning sensation in my head.  It was once again Jona’s.

            The krogan angrily stomped his foot.  “You kicked Jaroth out of this sale, but you waste more time than he even has left in his puny salarian life!  Eclipse is all talk and no action.”

            The asari held up her left hand threateningly, giving the krogan only a glance.  He reached for the pistol at his hip but Jona lightly flicked her wrist and it crashed against the wall of the room in a flash of blue.  The krogan scowled but then showed restraint as he took a step back in the direction of the vorcha who had accompanied him.

            I, myself, took a step back in shock from Jona’s impromptu demonstration of her biotic abilities.  Though I knew they could do much more but this was the first time I had seen them used in real life.  I heard murmurs from the remaining children behind me but no one else in the room seemed surprised in the least.

            “As I was saying,” she turned back to me, “Your name.”

            I swallowed hard and clenched my hands as I spoke.  “Gidion.”  It came out almost as a whisper.

            “I can’t hear you.  Speak up!” Jona chided impatiently.

            “Gidion Vane,” I said with as much force as I could muster despite the terror that coursed through my body.

            “And what did you do on New Canton?” she asked, looking at me expectantly, tilting her head slightly to the side.

            My knees trembled and I clutched my overalls like when I was back in the tunnels of the colony.  “My mama was a soldier, and my daddy was an engineer.  I… I used to go to school a lot, but I can shoot a gun and daddy taught me to fix some things.” I felt myself stumble over my words as a thin line of tears slipped from my right eyes.  “I used to help him fix shuttles we used around the colony.”

            “And was your mama a good woman, girl?” Jona asked.

            I didn’t understand the question.  I clutched my arms to my chest nervously and looked around.  The krogan still looked angry as ever but was giving Jona her space.  The turian from Blue Suns looked bored and poked at his datapad with one long talon as his human assistant looked over his shoulder.  The batarians seemed to be growing impatient.

            No one was saying anything and I had no idea what to do.  My mind swam with thought and emotions and the overwhelming desire to go back to my tiny home on New Canton and crawl underneath my favorite blanket in bed. 

            I thought about that home and how my mother wasn’t around much when I was growing up.  I remembered how she used to come home covered in bruises and scars, sometimes with a limb in a cast for weeks at a time.  But whenever my mother saw me her eyes would light up and it seemed as though a fog had been lifted from her.  When she was home we used to cook all of our meals together and she would read me to sleep at night.  Sometimes I would wake up in the morning and discover she had been too exhausted to go back to her own bed and had spent the entire night by my side, the book propped on her chest as it lightly rose and fell with her breath.

            Even when my mother wasn’t home I still loved her.  I remembered piles of torn and stained kakis that my daddy and I would sew back together when my mother was away on duty.  She would send me letters and little packages in the mail when she could, a chocolate bar or small trinket from Ferris Fields.  Never once in my life did I feel abandoned.

            I reached for her medallion that hung from my neck.

            “My mama was the best woman,” I replied, even toned and serious, my eyes drawn to Jona’s gaze.  To my surprise the tears had stopped mid flow.

            She didn’t give me the smirk that she had given Tar’me, but instead shouted “3200 credits!”

            “What!  For this wimpy human girl?” The krogan roared.

            Jona looked to the turian who kept tapping away at his datapad, seemingly oblivious.

            “Sounds like we have a sale,” sighed the batarian conducting the auction.  He seemed tired with the drama of having the three representatives cramped into such a tight room under the false pretense of civility under capitalism.

            I walked lightly to Tar’me who grasped my hand in hers as we turned to watch the rest of the auction.  It lasted for another half-hour or so before most of the children had been split between the three rival factions of Omega.  The Blood Pack had hoarded all of the strongest boys in the group of captives but the Blue Suns had outdone them in number.  Eclipse had taken fewer than the others and seemed to favor girls and asari.

            The Blood Pack left first in a rush, followed by the Blue Suns who left through an opposite exit I had not noticed until it was in use.  Eclipse hung around for a moment while the band of batarian slavers gathered their possession and the few remaining children who had been unwanted by the mercs.  What would happen to them was anyone’s guess.

            Jona carefully inspected her new possessions without saying a thing.

            “When you get back to Zeta district you will be fed, bathed, and issued new clothing.  There’s enough disease on Omega that we don’t need you spreading any more of it to our engineers and soldiers.”  All the five children before her could do was blink and nod.

            “Good, then I will have Captain Saley escort you back to base.  I am needed on Illium,” she replied.  Up close, I could see the artificial light give a glint off of the purple stripes near the base of her scalp crest.

            Mesmerized by the mercenary’s presence and the shock that still lasted from being suddenly saved from the Blood Pack, I found my voice came out of nowhere before my conscious mind could stop it.  “Thank you.  Thank you so much!” burst from my throat as I choked on the last syllable, tears that had been halted during the auction now rolling freely from my cheeks and mixing with the dirt on my filthy overalls.

            I looked to the metal flooring but I could feel Jona’s piercing stare once again pass through the top of my skull.

            “What the hell are you thanking me for, girl?” she said dismissively as she strode from the warehouse and left me with Captain Saley and my four fellow new mercs of Eclipse.

           

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tar'me M'loor - (TAR-may MAH-lore)  
> Saley - (SAY-lee)
> 
> 5 credits ~ $1 USD
> 
> All districts mentioned are canon but not fleshed out in canon.  
> Also it totally hasn't been a year since I updated.  
> ~A


	4. 10 July 2176 – Omega – Zeta district

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gideon settles into life in Eclipse, but still manages to find her way into trouble, earning her a new friend.

10 July 2176 – Omega – Zeta district

            Fixing up LOKI mechs is grunt work but once you get into a rhythm the process can actually be quiet relaxing.  Five weeks since arriving on Omega and living within the ranks of Eclipse I had gotten used to waking up every morning and repairing mechs with my bunkmate, another human named Margo Yu who was purchased by Eclipse at the same time as I was.

            Margo was fourteen, short and mixed-race with straight black hair and a devilish grin.  She tended to make others feel uneasy at first but they eventually grew used to her perpetual silence.  It’s not like she could help it; she was mute, after all.  Some of the others who worked engineering detail in the morning thought it might be because she was psychologically scarred by an explosion at a pharmaceutical plant on her home planet of Fehl Prime.  It was a big event in the Terminus System and left a lot of children on the colony orphaned.

             I had one of the LOKI heads unscrewed from the rest of the machine and had the piece propped on my lap, omni-tool in hand. 

            “Ugh, I have to replace three of these sensors.  How does that one look, Margo?” I asked my counterpart.

            Margo just shook her head and held up two fingers.

            “Well, two’s better than three,” I replied.  “Don’t get up, I’ll grab them for us.”

            I made my way to the back of the warehouse and opened a plastic case with a row of sensors neatly aligned on a strip of cellophane.  Finding they were the right model for the LOKI mechs, I close the lid of the case and took a detour through the dry dock hanger on my way back to Margo.

            I found Tar’me fastening a piece of steel over a gaping hole in the side of a transport shuttle and using her omni-tool to weld it into place.  She had a dimming visor pulled over her eyes to protect her from the sparks that flew.  I stood back a fair distance and waiting for her to pause in her work.

            “Tar’me!” I grinned as I approached her.

            The young asari pushed a button on the side of her visor and revealed her eyes.  “Gideon, how are the mechs?”  She rubbed her hands on her black jumpsuit, one that was identical to the one I had been assigned.

            “Okay,” I told her, “but I’d rather be working on shuttles.  LOKI mechs are easy to repair and all with the diagnostics in my omni-tool, but working on shuttles is what I used to do back home with my father.”

            “They don’t really seem to want the younger humans welding, for some reason.  Maybe they think you’re going to hurt yourself,” Tar’me suggested.

            “You’re young too!” I argued.

            She shook her head. “Remember, asari don’t age like humans.”

            “Right,” I said with a frown.

            “Vane!  How are those LOKI mechs looking?” a voice boomed from behind me.  It was the captain in charge of the morning engineering detail, Junus Barion.

            He was an older turian, tired and worn from a long life on Omega.  Though born and bred in the slums, he didn’t have a proclivity towards violence like so many citizens of the station.  His one remaining eye observed me as I turned to face him.

            “Um, they’re great Captain Barion!  I have the sensors I needed right here.  I was just on my way back and I saw Tar’me so I stopped to see if she needed any advice on the shuttle,” I quickly explained.

            “So why were you going through the dry dock on your way back to the mechs?” he inquired.  “This area is out of your way.”  His tone wasn’t spiteful; it was almost as though he was testing my response. He glanced around the yard at other Eclipse mercs working on various gunships and shuttles. 

            “Um…” I stammered.  “I needed to stretch my legs?” I didn’t mean for it to come out like a question, but I knew that the captain hadn’t been fooled in the first place.

            He just shook his head.  “You need to work on your lying, Vane.  It’s an important skill to have here on Omega.  Being able to bluff your way out of a tight spot might save your life someday.  Now, go get back to work on those mechs; you’ve had enough fraternizing for one day.”

            I waved quickly in Tar’me’s direction as I left, heading back to the section of the warehouse where mechs were stored and repaired.  I was thankful that Captain Barion was so easygoing with us during engineering detail.  Most of the asari captains would have at least smacked me for being distracted from my work.  Or in the case of Captain Saley, had me doing pushups for an hour.

            I turned the corner into the section of the warehouse where the mechs were being repaired.  The LOKI mech I was working on sat alone in the center of the room beside Margo’s, also abandoned.  Older humans and salarians worked at their own stations, seemingly unaware that two of their peers had gone missing.

            I place the box of sensors on my workstation and walked the perimeter of the room, trying to find my bunkmate.  A hulking YMIR mech was having one of its arms reattached by a salarian while an older human held it in place.

            One of the storage rooms behind the YMIR mech seemed off.  The lock on the door was green instead of red, which would usually indicate it was locked.  I crept close to the door and reached out only to have it open automatically with my movement. 

            Margo was hunched in the corner, her face plastered in noiseless terror, a silent scream on her lips that would never come to fruition.  A teenage human boy was looming over her, hand pressed against one of the metal lockers next to which Margo was crumpled.  I watched as he raised his boot and slammed it into the side of her head, shoving it into the corner of the locker.  Her face contorted as she was wracked with pain and a trickle of blood that came from a new gash in her forehead.

            “Hey, who the heck are you?!” I shouted at the boy.  As I entered the room I noticed he was accompanied by a salarian who was about the same age according to the biology of his species.

            The human sneered at me, revealing a row of crooked teeth, one of which was missing.  “Nikara,” he replied.  “And who the fuck are you, little girl?”

            “Gideon.  Why are you beating up Margo?  She didn’t do anything to you!” I shouted.

            “That little freak?” he spat, pointing a finger at Margo as she crumpled into a ball on the floor.  “She never talks.  She thinks she’s better than us!  I heard from some of the older mercs that her parents were some rich bastards who made money off of the poor people slaving away in the manufacturing plants on Fehl Prime.  Poor people like me and Veban here who have been living in the gutter since we were kids.”

            “We’re all member of Eclipse, we’re all the same now.  Does it matter?” I asked.  “Besides, she didn’t have anything to do with what her parents might have done.”

            Nikara shook his head.  “I don’t give a damn, she walks around refusing to speak to people like some kind of an arrogant prick!”  He moved over to Margo, raising a fist as though he was going to land another blow to her head.

            Without thinking, I sprung on him, knee flying into his chest as he collapsed on the ground next to Margo who watched in horror.  I planted a fist into the side of his jaw as I cried “She’s mute, you shithead!”  Straddling him, I landed another blow with my left fist, snapping his head in the other direction.  The salarian named Veban tried to pull me off of him, but I swatted away his delicate frame with ease.  Right, left, right.  I kept pounding into Nikara’s face with as much force as my petite, preteen hands could muster.  I could see him peering at me with swollen eyes through the tears that welled in my own.

            A woman’s voice echoed from the doorway.  “What the _fuck_ is going on in here?  Vane!  Get off of that boy right now before I give you a taste of my own fists.”  It was Captain Saley.  A flash of blue surrounded me as I was captured by a stasis field for a brief second and Nikara was dragged out from under me by Saley.  The stasis field then disappeared as quickly as it had appeared and I was dragged by the Captain to my feet.  She narrowed her eyes, the red stripes that extended from beneath them made her fearsome, especially when she was chiding young recruits under her command.

            “Explain.” She demanded.

            “He was beating up Margo!  I couldn’t let him!” I bawled.

            Saley kept a grip on the collar of my uniform as she took a look at Nikara who was still laying on the floor.  He was bruised and hurting, but still conscious.

            “Volici, is this true?” she asked the salarian.

            “Y-yes, Captain,” the salarian stammered, looking down in shame.

            Saley sighed, releasing me from her grip.  “We’ve had a lot of problems with that one, so I’m letting you off easy, Vane.”

            I nodded eagerly at the prospect of not being thrown out of an airlock as I whipped my face with the back of my hand.

            “We’re not Blood Pack.  We don’t take out our frustrations on our own, no matter how much of a shithead they might be,” she told me.

            The Captain turned back to Nikara.  “As for you, Nikara.  It is absolutely unacceptable for you to be harming your comrades, do you understand?”

            Nikara groaned weakly in response.

            “Oh, stop being so dramatic!” Saley said as she dragged the boy to his feet.  “I think Vane’s punished you enough for now but I’ll make sure there is further reprimand for your actions.  Volici and Nikara, get back to work.  Vane, you take your friend here to the infirmary.”

            “Yes, ma’am,” I said as I helped Margo stand.

            It seemed as though every Eclipse member who walked by was staring at us as I we made our way to the base’s infirmary.  An asari who carrying a large, sealed boxed whispered to her companion, “I heard Jona Sederis picked out this new group herself!” 

            Her companion replied, “They seem rather… unstable don’t you think?”

            They had walked too far by to hear the first asari’s reply, but it was met with a loud laugh from her companion.

            Margo was attempting to hold back the bleeding from her forehead with a dirty rag she had been using while working on her mech.  We eventually made our way to the small office that functioned as the base’s infirmary and took a seat for a nurse to see us.

            Margo smiled at me once we sat down, away from the prying eyes of our fellow mercs.  She mouthed the words _thank you_.

            “Of course,” I replied.

            Then Margo communicated with me in a way that should have been obvious, but I had never seen her try before.  She put down the bloodstained rag and opened a holographic screen from her omni-tool.  She tapped her fingers across her wrist, writing a message.

            <<I DIDN’T KNOW YOU COULD THROW A PUNCH LIKE THAT>> she wrote.

            I gave a weak laugh.  “My mother used to say I was a ‘sweet girl’ but I ‘have a temper’.”  My heart ached faintly at the thought of her comfort.

            <<I WANT TO SHOW YOU SOMETHING TONIGHT.  MEET ME IN OUR BUNK, 2300 HOURS>> she typed.

            “Ok, we can do that,” I said, glad she was finally learning to trust me.

            Just then, a human nurse entered the room and Margo quickly closed the holographic screen and the message it relayed.  She was taken to the back room and left me with another smile, this time one of her devilish ones, as I exited the office to return to my pile of mechs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Junus Barion (JUNE-us BARE-ee-un)  
> Veban Volici (VEH-bin voh-LEE-chee)
> 
> ~A


End file.
